The Acronym
by DancingGrimm
Summary: "'Bee Ay Em Eff'. Hm, that's a new one on me. Do you know what it means, Sherlock?" John might not know what it means, but there are many little ways in which he proves the acronym suits him.
1. Prologue

"Sherlock, are you any good with acronyms?"

Sherlock looked up from his experiment and leaned to one side on the kitchen stool so he could see John through the doorway. "What exactly do you mean by 'good' with them?"

"I _mean_, do you know what they _mean_?"

"Some of them, I suppose. What is it?"

"Well, somebody left a funny comment on one of my blog posts-"

"Which one?"

John, sick of talking around the door frame, picked up his laptop and came into the kitchen, propping the computer on the work top as he reached to switch on the kettle.

"The Essex Vampire," he replied, glancing at the slight sneer that appeared on Sherlock's face upon hearing another of John's 'fanciful' titles.

"Do _please_ explain further," Sherlock said dully.

"You remember, surely," John teased. "All those girls with the babies?"

"Oh! And they all said the same boy was the father."

"And they said the babies were being fed on by a vampire..."

"But it was the boy's older brother trying to take blood samples for DNA tests..."

"Because he wanted to get on the telly..."

"And all the girls had been reading romance novels about teenaged vampires. Yes, I remember. That's actually one of your more pragmatic titles, I think John."

"Well, there's a comment after the post, where the commenter copied in a bit of my article's text – they do that sometimes, if they want to make a point about a specific bit – and...Sherlock, are you listening?"

"Mmm."

John kicked the leg of the stool and Sherlock turned to glare at him.

"As I was _saying_, they copied and pasted the bit about when I had to rugby tackle the older brother to get the syringes off him, and then wrote 'Watson you _Bee Ay Em Eff_'. And...that's a new one on me. Have you heard it before?"

Sherlock racked his brains but was forced to admit that he had no more knowledge on this than John did, and told him so.

"Hmm," John murmured, sitting at the table with laptop and tea in hand. "Brilliantly Agile, Modest Fly-half?" John tried, looking pleased with himself.

"Bloody Awful Meandering Fantasist?" Sherlock suggested innocently.

"My writing isn't that bad!"

Sherlock wordlessly turned his attention back to his stack of Petrie dishes.

"I'm going to Google it," John muttered and began stabbing away at the keyboard. They both looked up as Sherlock's phone chimed a text alert and John, sitting nearest to it, picked it up.

"Shit," he said abruptly, jumping to his feet. "Sherlock, they found another note. Lestrade wants us there right away."

They both grabbed up their coats and rushed out of the door.

Presently John's laptop would go into sleep mode and when, several days later, he finally had opportunity to log back in, he would go straight to his email account, ignoring the blog post he had been looking at with such curiosity. The acronym and its meaning would go forgotten by the two men for some time.

::


	2. Bothersome, Although Minor, Fleshwound

John Watson accepted a fresh pair of latex gloves from one of the paramedics and, managing to maintain his perfect calm, turned to a detective constable with a dislocated shoulder to begin administering cold packs.

Dimmock watched him with something approaching concern. He'd heard much of Watson since his first encounter with the man, one detail of which was that he suffered from PTSD or some similar kind of problem. It made Dimmock wonder if he should even be here.

Here, of course, being a complete and utter bombsite. Literally. Sherlock had worked out the location of the bomb from some smear of something on the note...Dimmock hadn't really been able to follow that bit, but he'd worked it out, that was the important thing. They'd searched the department store that the smear-thing had led them to and found the device a good hour before it was due to go off. Good news, as it gave them opportunity to evacuate the two hundred or so shoppers and staff.

Unfortunately, the bomber had had no intention of surviving his criminal campaign, planning to go up in the explosion with his victims, and had managed to make a run for the bomb before anyone could work out who he was. The resulting explosion had badly injured twelve police officers and fire fighters, and had caught a further fifteen or so people with minor injuries, though thankfully the only death had been that of the fool who'd planted the damn thing.

Now, camped out in the car park in the dwindling dusk, journalists and morbid passers-by peering at them from the other side of the hastily erected police barriers, everyone was putting themselves back together. The paramedics were obviously appreciative of Watson's help, doctors with such extensive experience of treating injuries sustained in explosions being apparently few and far between in London, and he had been bustling about applying dressings and cleaning wounds for most of the half hour since the boom.

Sherlock was uncharacteristically well behaved. Or, not exactly that, but certainly quiet. As soon as the ambulances had turned up and Watson had announced his intention to get stuck in, Sherlock had perched stiffly on the concrete base of a lamp post and had been watching the scene in front of him ever since with an eerie attentiveness that made Dimmock wonder if some other terrible crime was about to be committed.

Surely Sherlock would tell somebody if that were the case though. He would, wouldn't he?

Dimmock was startled out of his musings by a touch on his shoulder, and turned to see Dr Watson standing at his side, a weary but reassuring smile on his face.

"How's the head, Dimmock?" he asked, his tone polite despite the rather improper use of Dimmock's surname.

Dimmock raised one hand to touch the sticky trail of blood on the side of his face, but Watson pushed the hand away and drew him over to one of the ambulances, tutting.

"It's okay, Watson, I-"

"I'll decide that, thank you," Watson cut in, in a tone that brooked no argument. He pushed Dimmock to sit down on the edge of the ambulance floor, between the open rear doors, and smoothed his short hair out of the way to reveal the cut. Dimmock hadn't even seen what it was that had cut him, some bit of glass he supposed, but it had bled like mad for a few minutes. He'd known to put pressure on it though, and it had stopped, but he knew he'd probably need stitches.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Watson pick up a pair of tweezers and braced himself for the horrible, creeping feeling of grit being picked from the wound. Watson was fairly quick about it though, and in a couple of minutes the wound was clean and Dimmock had a wad of gauze secured in place over it with a bandage.

"That'll do until you can go to A&E and get it stitched, I think," Watson said lightly. "Hurt anywhere else?"

"No."

"You're sure?"

Dimmock nodded and tried to get to his feet, but Watson pushed him back down. Sherlock had wandered over to them and was peering at Watson.

"Alright Inspector?" he asked Dimmock casually, his eyes still on his partner.

"Yes," he replied, feeling suspicious.

"Only, you've failed to mention to John about that cut on your arm, and he's noticed it. He won't see to his own injuries until he's dealt with everyone else's. He's that sort of man, you know."

Dimmock looked over at Watson; he didn't seem to be injured at all, but not desperate to draw Sherlock's ire after what had happened with Anderson's wife last month, he agreeably slipped off his jacket, unfastened his shirt cuff and pulled up the sleeve to reveal his injured elbow.

"It's only grazed," he muttered as Watson set to work. Apparently, even a graze was an issue to the doctor though, as he cleaned it just as thoroughly as the head wound. Dimmock felt like a bit of a tit for hiding it, actually. Watson was frowning at him, but still didn't appear to be hurt. There was no more tension in his face than usual and his mobility seemed normal.

Finally they were done, and Dimmock was allowed to get up, with strict orders to go to A&E as soon as possible. He thanked the doctor and made to walk away, but something made him look back.

Watson had put one foot up on the ambulance floor, where Dimmock had been sitting, and was pulling a small tear in the left leg of his trousers open wider. Dimmock saw blood trickle over his gloved fingers and realised that the heavy, dark brown corderoy had camoflaged the bloodstain. Sherlock picked a metal instrument up from inside the ambulance and passed it to Watson and, over Sherlock's shoulder, Dimmock saw a wince of pain cross Watson's face. A couple of paramedics were staring with something like impressed horror and Sherlock gave them a repressive glare. Then Watson was doing something with gauze and carefully rubbing his leg.

"Your pain threshhold is unusally high," Sherlock mused, loud enough for Dimmock to hear. "I'm going to do an experiment to test it."

"No you bloody aren't," Watson replied.

::

I don't know where the ideas for this came from, but there's quite a few of them suddenly popping out of my head. I'll try and get one done every few days. Enjoy and, as always, I love feedback.  
Oh, also, John's blog entry title in the prologue was a reference to The Sussex Vampire.


	3. Baleful Aura Mitigates Fury

"What exactly is it you'd like to know, Mr Alan?" Sarah asked politely. The man on the other end of the line cleared his throat uncomfortably. Sarah suppressed a sigh and got up from her desk. This was going to be something stupid, she could already tell.

"Well it's...I don't know if I should really bother you with it, but...um..."

"It's okay Mr Alan, please do say," she encouraged, as she turned to stare out of the window. Just last week she'd had a phone call from a man who'd got a drinking straw stuck in his urethra and it had begun just the same as this one. If this wasn't somehow related to an embarrassing genital issue, she'd be the Queen of bloody Sheba.

"Umm...well, I've got my arm in a cast, you see..."

"Yes Mr Alan, I see from your records. Broken about two weeks ago now, yes? Are you experiencing any pain? Have you had any problems with the cast?"

If he'd somehow managed to get his bits stuck in his cast, she was going to cry.

Out in the waiting room she heard raised, angry voices, two men. Julia, the receptionist, shouted something at them and they quietened down.

"Well, it's my friend. He did something to the cast and I'm trying to fix it."

"Alright then, what did he do?" Sarah asked.

"Umm..."

The same two voices suddenly flared up again in the waiting room and she could hear Julia talking agitatedly to the two arguing men. Sarah felt a twinge of worry; their surgery was usually fairly quiet, but there was a fight on occasion. Olufemi, the big burly nurse who usually broke up such things, was on his holiday leave right now. Sarah bit her lip and decided to hurry Mr Alan along, get out there herself.

"Mr Alan, is your cast damaged? Has it come off?"

"No, nothing like that. Only, I wanted to know if it was okay to put Tippex on it."

"Uh..._Tippex_?" This was new.

The shouting was getting louder, more raucous now, and somebody else had joined in too. She was starting to get seriously worried.

"He drew...okay, he drew a _cock_ on my cast, alright? I just...how do I get rid of it?"

There was a crash in the waiting room and Sarah gasped.

"I mean, will Tippex make the plaster flake off or something?"

"Um-"

Across the corridor, she heard the door of the office John used open and his soft, brisk footsteps as he went out to the waiting room. She winced; John was going to get his backside handed to him.

"Doctor?" Mr Alan said.

"Ah, just one-"

The argument outside crescendoed with a tremendous crash and, almost in the same instant, Sarah heard John's voice.

"_QUIET_! YOU! _SIT_ down there. YOU! _GET_ in that office NOW!"

There was a thud in the waiting room and the following silence was broken only by the sound of somebody shuffling rapidly along the corridor. John's familiar footsteps followed, then the door of his office closed.

It was only then that Sarah noticed she had sat back down in her chair. She hadn't meant to, she was sure of it. But when John had _barked_ like that...

"Um." she said.

"Can...am I allowed to talk now?" Mr Alan whispered nervously on the other end of the line. "What was that?"

"It was just one of my colleagues, nothing to worry about."

"Oh...right."

::

I used to work in a public library and one of the most fun reference desk phone enquiries I ever had was when a guy had fallen asleep on the sofa and his little brother had drawn a cock on his arm cast. He had a job in a restaurant and had a short sleeved uniform, so he had to get it off before he went in to work, and needed me to find out how. Oh it was such a laugh!


	4. Belligerent Antagonist Made Fearful

If Sally Donovan had ever been more tempted to break out the police brutality, she couldn't remember the occasion. She'd always expected that it would be Sherlock that would make her snap, had already compiled a document on her PC about what legal measures she would have to take if she got reprimanded for hitting him, but no.

As annoying as he was, he had nothing on Louis Kirkwood. This one was the scum of the fucking earth.

Four days ago, a group of men attempted to rob a branch of Lloyds TSB in central London. The robbery had been a botch from the start, but they'd got away after they grabbed a fifteen year old girl, Saskia Olsen, to use as a hostage and human shield. Out of the four criminals involved, only one had been stupid enough to take his gloves off at any point in the proceedings, and the resulting fingerprints had led to Kirkwood, who had been arrested and brought in. Kirkwood's usual partner, Sam Griffith, had been searched for, but he wasn't at his house (which had been abandoned for some days) and hadn't shown up to his job in over a week.

Griffith wasn't usually interested in kidnapping, but after the Olsen family, against the advice of the police, had given a press conference offering their meagre life savings as a ransom, the kidnappers managed to send a message demanding more money while giving no evidence that Saskia was still alive.

They couldn't find the criminals. They couldn't find the girl. Even the Freak had failed them.

And Kirkwood sat in Interview Room Six, handcuffed to the table, laughing at them.

She had been in here with him for five hours just this morning, watching Lestrade interrogate him and Sherlock struggle to glean anything from his clothes and fingernails and odds and ends of things that he said, and she was so damned _sick_ of the stuffy room and the miserable excuse for humanity stuck in that chair that she was about ready to scream. Sherlock was in a rare mood; a few hours before, he'd finally realised that Watson had been without sleep for about 42 hours and had told him to go home for some rest, but as always, he was on edge without his friend to stabilise him, and Kirkwood had been on the recieving end of some truly epic bitch-fits.

Kirkwood had laughed hysterically all through it.

"Are you goons going to process me for the bank job or not?" Kirkwood asked, around two in the afternoon. "Because, you know, that's all you've got me on, and if you hold me here much longer there's going to be questions about why you waited so long to get things moving after arresting me. You know, all those Guantanamo Bay type questions? Because, you know, you fuckers are getting nothing more out of me." He smiled serenely and kicked his feet up to rest them on the table.

One more '_you know_' and Donovan was going to snap.

Sherlock paced the tiny room, his face tense and pale. Lestrade was putting on a tough face, but Donovan knew that this was tearing him up, that he was thinking of his own daughter, only a year or two younger than the kidnapped girl. And as for Donovan herself, she was fairly sure she'd cut her nails into her palms, she was clenching her fists so hard.

She opened her mouth to speak, unsure of what would come out of it but aware that it'd probably incur a lot of bother, when raised voices in the corridor outside the interrogation room drew the attention of all its inhabitants.

"Hey, you can't go- oh, it's you, doctor."

A moment later the door was opened by the uniform officer standing guard outside and John Watson stepped into the room.

He looked completely different to the shabby and worn state he'd been in when she'd last seen him. The shadows under his eyes were still deep, but his face had somehow brightened, as if he'd managed to squeeze a full night's sleep into three and a quarter hours. His step was brisk, his posture straight and his expression pleasantly bland, all trace of his earlier anger and distress gone. He had a large case in his hand, the sort with sections that folded out, like a make-up artist's case or a craft kit, but there were red crosses on the ends of the case and the lid. He placed it on the table and gave Lestrade a polite nod.

"John, what-"

"I had a little idea," Watson said pleasantly, addressing the room at large. "I thought it may make us all get along better."

Kirkwood frowned at John's face. "'Ere, weren't you around, you know, before?"

Watson gave him a vague smile in answer, and opened his case. From what Donovan could see, it was a very well stocked first aid kit, probably the same sort of stuff he would have used in the field. Kirkwood's chair was pushed back from the table, his right hand cuffed to the thin steel rail that ran along the side of the table top for that very purpose, arm stretched out. Watson carefully grasped his bare forearm, squeezing lightly, and Donovan wondered if he was feeling for the pulse or something.

Sherlock stared silently at John's face from the corner of the room. Lestrade frowned but didn't intervene. Donovan took her boss' example.

"Make a fist please," Watson told Kirkwood. The other man stared at him, baffled.

"Don't worry, I'm a doctor," Watson added, and turned to take something out of the case. To Donovan's surprise, Kirkwood, possibly rendered obedient by confusion, made a fist with his right hand, and Watson grasped his arm again, higher up this time.

She didn't see what he held in his other hand until he put it to use; an old fashioned syringe, glass and stainless steel, containing a small volume of clear liquid. He injected the lot into the vein in Kirkwood's inner elbow, then took a sturdy paper bag out of the case and dropped the used syringe into it.

"Wha- what the hell was _that_!?" Kirkwood cried. Watson gave him another tight smile.

"Just something to keep you alert." Watson replied. His voice and his face were calm and reassuring, with a faint touch of cheeriness. Donovan felt herself tense; somehow it was sinister as hell.

"I'll be back in just a moment," Watson announced to the room at large, and he gave Sherlock a nod as he left. Sherlock stared as the door closed behind his friend, his face rigid to prevent his emotions showing. Lestrade looked...spooked.

"Who the fuck is he?" Kirkwood asked querulously, scratching at his inner elbow.

"He's a doctor," Lestrade replied. He too was staring at the door. Donovan was sure that he knew both the freak and his friend far better than she did, but all the same he seemed completely thrown by Watson's actions.

For the first time in the long hours they'd been here, Kirkwood pulled against the handcuffs on his wrist, testing them. They chimed dully at the bar, the chain jumping. They held solid.

"This...you know, this is police brutality," Kirkwood said, trying to keep his voice calm.

Lestrade shook his head. "He's a civilian. Not police."

Kirkwood clenched his jaw and gave the chain another violent yank.

All heads turned to the door as the doctor's brisk footsteps sounded in the corridor, and a moment later the door was thrown open with a great _crash_ against the inner wall. All of them jumped and Donovan's heart thudded in her chest...but Watson stepped through, perfectly calm, nodding at the guard as he passed him.

"Sorry about that," he said lightly, and pushed the door shut with a gentle sweep of one hand. He wore latex gloves now, and his rolled up sleeves revealed a slight sheen of moisture on his forearms. He'd washed his hands as if for surgery, she realised.

Kirkwood seemed to have noticed this as well, and he reared back as much as he could in his seat, as Watson approached him.

"Oh, don't worry about a thing," Watson told the prisoner as he pulled out the upper compartments of the case, which folded out on little brackets. "That stuff'll start work any moment now, and then you'll feel quite well with the world. And if you don't, well..." He took a scalpel from the case, a new looking one wrapped in some sort of sealed plastic packet and set it on the table.

"I'm sure we can make you quite comfortable while we wait."

Kirkwood yelped and began pulling at the cuffs, to no avail.

Apart from Kirkwood's struggles with the cuff, the room was deathly quiet. Sherlock was staring raptly at Watson's hands as he rummaged in the case. Lestrade seemed frozen to the spot, staring at Kirkwood. And Donovan herself, she couldn't have moved if the room had caught fire.

Watson just kept taking things out of the box. Some sort of metal spatula.

"I've dealt with cases like this before, you know."

Something that looked like the blade of a hacksaw.

"The military gives you a very broad experience, not like hospital work."

A thing like a tiny pizza cutter, which looked like it had a sharp edge.

"Of course, so many of these techniques, you don't get to use often."

He took out a little roll of leather and unfolded it, and Donovan gasped. Dental tools.

A chill went through her.

Suddenly, she became aware of a faint hissing sound and an acrid scent, and craned her head to see a little yellow pool gathering underneath Kirkwood's chair.

"Fuck! _Fuck_!" Kirkwood yelled.

Watson shook his head at him. "No need for that, now," he said, and adjusted one of his gloves with a _snap_.

"I'll tell you! I'll tell you!" Kirkwood yelped, his wide eyes fixed on the implements on the table. Watson raised his eyebrows and looked to Lestrade.

"Go on then," he replied, and picked up the scalpel, opening the sterile packaging with a little _pop_.

Donovan reached over to the recorder to make sure it had plenty of memory left, then moved the microphone just a bit closer to Kirkwood.

He talked. _God_ did he talk, it was almost a challenge to shut him up.

Griffith and the two other conspirators were holed up in the cellar of an abandoned house only two streets away from Griffith's own residence. A couple of officers were guarding Griffith's place and so were radioed and sent over to find this cellar. After half an hour or more of tense waiting, Lestrade left the room and came back with news that the three fugitives had been rounded up succesfully, and that Saskia Olsen was safe and well.

On hearing this news, Watson sagged where he stood and peeled off his gloves, wearily tidying them and the rest of his tools back into the case. The tiredness was back in his face, but the worry was gone. Lestrade called a couple of officers in and had them see Kirkwood back to his cell, and Donovan saw them look askance at the spreading wet stain on the man's trousers. He was still shaking and gave Watson a wide berth as he left the room.

Watson unrolled his sleeves and picked up his case, then turned to make for the door, when Sherlock stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

"It was water. In the syringe. Water or saline." His voice was tense.

Watson frowned slightly at him. "Saline. Of course it was. Did you really think it could be anything else?"

He didn't appear to take Sherlock's look of relief as a compliment, and marched past him out of the room.

It was, possibly, the first and only time that Donovan and the Freak had had the same reaction to something.

::

Bit of a scary Watson here, but he got the job done. Hope it didn't upset anyone.


	5. Bastard, Asshole, Magnificent Fwit

It was about ten past eleven, or maybe more like a quarter past, when Mrs Hudson heard the front door open as the boys returned home. She knew it was silly of her to wait up, really, but when they went rushing off in the way they did she always worried so _much_! Oh, the _things_ they got up to! And she knew they could take care of themselves, she really did, but waiting up for them didn't do anybody any harm now, did it.

She opened the door to her own flat and peeped out. They were standing together at the bottom of the stairs and John seemed to be having some sort of problem with Sherlock, pushing and pulling at him by his shoulders. Sherlock was clutching at John's jacket and at the wall on his other side, and there was a constant stream of muttered words coming from his mouth, just a touch too quiet for her to make out.

"Hoo hoo," she called tentatively, and crossed the hall towards them. John turned, looking a bit worried, as he often did.

"Mrs Hudson, I'm surprised you're still awake," he said mechanically. "Uh...you might not want to hear this, he's being a bit-"

"Arse wank!" Sherlock declared, and Mrs Hudson clapped a hand over her mouth and gasped. Sherlock's eyes were bloodshot and he was slurring, wobbling on his feet like a drunkard.

"He's drunk," John reported.

"Shut fucking _up_!" Sherlock snapped, then burped loudly.

"Oh dear," Mrs Hudson sighed, and hurried forwards to help John settle Sherlock onto the floor and prop him into a sitting position against the wall beneath the coat hooks. "But he doesn't drink! What happened?"

John sighed and helped Sherlock pull his gloves off. "We were at that restaurant, the one where the owner's a suspect." She nodded, and he batted Sherlock's hands away from his scarf and took it off him before continuing.

"Well, the owner spotted us posing as customers. I think the brother must have warned him. He put something, maybe ethanol, maybe just strong spirits, into Sherlock's drink. He's been cursing like a navvie ever since."

"Goodness!" Mrs Hudson murmured.

"Buh-asshole! ...Ass-tard..." Sherlock tried, bless him.

"It's not gone as far as alcohol poisoning, thankfully. I think he'll sleep it off, but I'll sit up and keep an eye on him," John told her. He turned and addressed his friend in loud, clear tones.

"Sherlock, you stay here. I'm going to get your bed ready. Okay?"

"That ...that magnificent _fuckwit_, John," Sherlock said plaintively.

"Yeah, I know. Don't worry though, we got him."

Sherlock replied with a vague burbling noise as John dashed off up the stairs, and he looked up folornly at Mrs Hudson, his eyes so huge in his pale face that it made her feel all soppy.

"Oh dear, are you feeling a bit rough?" she asked softly, crouching in front of him. His lower lip popped out into a pout and he nodded.

"Wuz John?"

"He's gone upstairs dear. He'll be back in a moment."

"Pissing hell," Sherlock replied, but there was no fervour in it. He let his head drop back against the wall and shut his eyes, and seconds later he appeared to be asleep.

Not one to miss a rare opportunity, Mrs Hudson reached out and gently patted the top of his curly head. Oh he _was_ sweet, even when he was all sweary and bringing homeless people in at all hours and covering the hob with sewage and... well, he was quite sweet when he was unconscious.

She could hear John moving about upstairs and decided it wouldn't hurt for her to go and give him a hand. He'd left the door to the flat open, and as she entered he was carrying a tray into Sherlock's bedroom, a plastic bucket hanging by its handle over his forearm. He was still in his coat an scarf, having put Sherlock's wellbeing ahead of his own comfort, as he often did.

Oh she _did_ have nice tenants.

"Would you like a hand dear?" she asked, and followed him into the bedroom. He nodded wearily at her, and she began to turn down the bedclothes so Sherlock could get straight in, while John arranged water and pills and a flannel in a small basin of water on the bedside table, and placed the bucket on the floor next to the bed, where it would be convenient for...well, for Sherlock's needs. When they were done, John surveyed the room with his hands on his hips, then nodded.

They set off back down the stairs to collect Sherlock, and discovered that he was awake again. He was attempting to ascend the stairs by lying face down on the steps and trying to sort of... _smear_ himself up them.

"Oh no, _no_, come here you," John said as he got down next to his flatmate.

"Fuck _off_, I can bloody _do_ it," Sherlock whined, but his eyes were barely open. John squatted next to him, grabbed Sherlock's arm, bent sidewards awkwardly and then with a great heave of effort, got to his feet, Sherlock's long wiry body draped over his shoulders in a fireman's carry.

"Oh dear, are you okay like that?" Mrs Hudson asked, nipping to the other side of the hall so she was out of the way.

"It's fine Mrs Hudson, thanks for your help," John replied, a touch breathless, and he set off up the stairs.

"Sh-shitbag," Sherlock stuttered balefully. Mrs Hudson put her hand over her mouth again, to stop a titter this time, and watched John's steady progress up the stairs, Sherlock muttering at him the whole way, until he turned around the bend in the stairs and she could no longer see them.

Shortly after they vanished from sight, she heard the distinct sound of somebody being sick, then a gloomy sounding sigh.

Oh dear.

It occured to her that John had no idea she was still standing in the hall and that she'd heard it. She _could_ just go back into her flat and quietly shut the door.

Hmm. What to do?

::

I like Mrs Hudson. I like Sherlock's floofy hair. So I had Mrs Hudson pat Sherlock's floofy hair.  
I am satisfied with how this turned out.  
I used to have a job as a barmaid in a hotel, and we got one regular customer who would often get so drunk that the only words left in his vocabulary were obscenities and that was like an alert to us to kick him out, because shortly after he reached that point he would usually try and poo in the fire grate in the lounge, regardless of whether the fire was lit or not. Ah, those were the days.


	6. Because Avengeance Means Fellowship

Molly was having a rotten day.

It had started so nicely too. She'd had a lovely chat with an old lady on the tube, a cheery walk to the hospital from the station in the sunshine, an answer to an important email was waiting for her on her PC, she got to the canteen a bit earlier than usual at lunch and got first pick of the salad bowls...

And then her boyfriend of five weeks had sent her a text reading;

_Hello sexy, can't wait to see you tonight. Can I stay over or will your brother be kipping on your sofa again? Been missing you. _

_Eric 3_

Eric, who'd seemed so nice and reliable and not at all like a mad bomber, had told her he was visiting his parents tonight. And Molly didn't have a brother. And he didn't have time to miss her because he worked at the hospital too and he'd only seen her that morning! Still, she'd told herself, it could all be a misunderstanding.

When Sherlock and John had come in to use the lab, she'd shown the text to Sherlock to see if he could work out any possible reason for it.

"He's cheating on you with a younger woman, probably one with less education than him," Sherlock had announced bluntly. John snapped at him, and Sherlock had given a put upon sigh, then turned back to Molly and added "I'm sorry, I realise it must be an unpleasant way to find out." He looked to John to confirm that this had been a better response, then delved back into his experiment.

"Sorry Molly," John added, a genuinely sympathetic look on his face. "It's a rotten thing to find out, especially like that. Had you been going out long?"

"A bit more than a month," Molly told him quietly. "I feel like such an idiot."

John had reassured her that she wasn't an idiot, and let her rant at him a little while. He asked her things about how they'd met and what job he did and she told him and had a bit of a whinge. Got it all out of her system, and it was really nice of him to just smile and nod and listen. By the time she had to get back to work, she felt a little bit better, but was still upset. She'd try and confront him before she left work, she decided.

The afternoon passed slowly as her thoughts kept skipping back to Eric and the message and her own stupidity at having not realised what was going on. In retrospect, there were plenty of hints. He'd called her by the wrong name during a conversation a couple of times, but had come up with a reasonable excuse. Another time she'd seen a woman's dressing gown in the wardrobe at his flat, but he'd said that it was the one his mother used when she came over to stay, that it was in there because she used his bedroom as it was warmer than the little spare room.

She was quite cross with him by five o'clock, though it did nothing to dampen her nerves at the prospect of going to talk to him about it. She hated confrontation, but she was determined to break up with him as soon as possible. It was one thing to crush on unobtainable men or accidentally date a mass murderer, it was another thing entirely to be a complete and total doormat and that was _not_ Molly Hooper, no way!

It occured to her that he would usually pop down to the morgue at about this time in the afternoon and hang out with her for a little while before going home. So she tidied up her office and went back to the morgue on the chance that she would find him there. As she approached the door, it occured to her that she could hear voices; a rather soft voice at first, speaking evenly and in a reasonable tone, though she couldn't make out the words. Then Sherlock's voice chimed in, telling another person to be quiet, though not, she thought, the first speaker.

That was odd. She'd known that he was in the morgue today, but who was in there with him?

She opened the door to see some sort of interrogation in progress. Sherlock and John both leaned in close to a seated figure, their head hidden by the high back of the large swivel chair they sat in, it's back to the door. Sherlock's face was angry, his eyes lit with some fierce emotion. John's was composed but intent, and he spoke quietly to the person in the chair, the other voice Molly had heard from outside. Even without the barrier of the door, she couldn't work out what he was saying, but the tone of his voice was chilling.

"Um..." she said, and both Sherlock and John immediately straightened, their faces snapping into neutral expressions as if they'd each flipped a switch.

"Hello Molly," they both said at the same time, and she looked down to see the person in the chair twisting around to look at her and-

"Eric?"

"Molly!" he cried tremulously, jumping out of the chair. He looked worriedly to the other two men and, at a subtle nod from John and then from Sherlock, he dashed across the morgue towards her.

"Molly, I'm so sorry, I didn't intend to hurt you but it was awful of me to try and cheat, and I'm not worthy of you, I shouldn't even have asked you out in the first place because I'm an asshole and I don't deserve a decent woman like you and I should have been a man and confessed and not let you find out for yourself and I'm sorry, I'm a shit and I won't ever even talk to you again if you don't want me to and oh god I'm sorry, _I'm sorry_!"

"A-alright," Molly replied. Eric was almost crying. "Well, obviously, this is the end of us dating. And I think I would like to not see you for at least a few days, as I'm quite upset."

"Oh God, I'm sorry I upset you Molly, I'm so fucking sorry!"

"No need for foul language," John commented mildly, and Eric winced and apologised again in a strained whisper.

"Well, um, maybe you should just go home," Molly suggested.

Eric nodded jerkily at her, then turned to the other two men. Sherlock narrowed his eyes at him and John, face still blandly expressionless, said "You heard her."

Eric gave them another nod, then turned back to Molly. "Look, I really don't know what-"

"Bugger off!" John snapped at him, and a little squeak came out of Eric's throat, and he shot through the doors and off down the corridor like somebody had lit a fire under his feet.

The doors swung shut, and Molly turned to see Sherlock and John quietly settling themselves on either side of one of the big tables. The severed arm that they'd come in to look at rested between them, a barbeque fork and a pair of knitting needles now sticking out of it.

"What...what was all that about?" she asked.

John looked up from putting on his surgical gloves. "Oh, he turned up looking for you. We had a bit of a chat." Sherlock nodded, and reached out to push one of the knitting needles more deeply into the arm.

Molly stared at them.

"What's up?" John asked her.

She shook her head. "I'm...I'm just trying to decide if I'm cross with you two or not."

::

Hello lovely ladies and gentlemen, I hope you enjoyed this :D  
Quite a few more of these to go, and then some of my original fiction and then back to slash! That's my schedule, watch me screw it up! Hahahaha


	7. Both, Afterwards, Made Friends

Greg Lestrade was aware of a certain tendancy he had when weighing up one thing against another. Call it a decision making process, call it childish competitiveness, call it what you will, but it came down to the fact that he sort of...

Well, he sort of played Top Trumps. Just in his head, but all the same, it was probably a bit not good.

Case in point; Sherlock had been a bloody misery all day. And granted, this crime had been a particularly difficult one to unravel, in more ways than one; a kidnapping had been reported by the neighbour of a large family, but the parents themselves had denied that any of their children were missing. They had four children, they said, and let the police examine the house finding, indeed, only furnishings and clothes for four children. However, Sherlock had spotted the marks from a fifth bed on the floor of one bedroom, which had led to John quietly and carefully convincing one of the other children, under the watchful eye of a social worker, to tell them what had happened to her older brother.

This had led to a distressing and dangerous 24 hours and a mystery involving a crooked moneylender, a bet gone badly wrong, an illegal adoption ring, a government worker taking bribes to alter birth records, and the revelation that the family concerned had originally had _six_ children, and that one had already been used to pay off a debt some two years ago.

It was a disgusting and upsetting case, and Lestrade was proud and relieved to have played a part in cracking it open. However, Sherlock, whom Lestrade had long suspected had more of an emotional response to his cases than he liked to believe, had reacted to the considerable stress of the whole thing by taking it out on everyone around him, including his friends.

Frankly, Lestrade wasn't surprised that it kicked off between him and John long after the more stressful events of the day had been wound up. Sherlock tended to get even more tense and nasty than usual during the down-time while everyone's statements were being taken and the evidence collated after the case, and though Lestrade had convinced them both to stick around for a while, Sherlock made it clear that he was entirely un-fucking-happy about the whole arrangement. He and John were both more on edge than usual, and he picked on John far more than normal too, so nobody could blame John for the fact that he finally snapped.

Lestrade had seen it coming from some way off, and had been thinking about how it would play out for a while. Thus he wasn't surprised when, while walking the two men to a taxi rank, he heard John Watson declare that he'd 'had enough', followed by Sherlock's aggressive, barely verbal retort.

Game on, thought Lestrade.

See, he'd been thinking about this for a while, much longer than just the course of the evening. The Top Trumps analogy was quite a suitable one, because he tended to pick a set of categories and weigh things up against each other depending on how they scored in those categories, just like on the cards.

So;

Who would win a fight out of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson?

Strength: Lestrade thought that John had the edge here, though admittedly not by much. Sherlock was stronger than he looked, of course, but so was John, and it was John who worked out at the gym, as well as doing a frankly gruelling set of physio-therapy exercises, of which a mere description had been sufficient to make Lestrade feel worn out. Besides, once when they'd been watching a game of rugby at a pub together, John had been so elated at a win, and so drunk to boot, that he'd picked Lestrade up around the waist and waved him about like a flag for several moments. So, John won that round.

Agility: Now this had to be Sherlock. Even without John being hampered by the stiffness of his injured shoulder, Sherlock was still the more flexible of the two, due in part, Lestrade was certain, to his tendancy to fold himself up like origami in his armchair. He also had to take into consideration Sherlock's longer arms and legs, an advantage he was no doubt aware of.

Speed: This was a tricky one. In terms of actually running around, Sherlock was faster, though his longer legs may well have been the deciding factor and John was usually only a breath behind him. They were both quick with their hands too, the skills of violin playing and loading firearms having seemingly trained them both for this (though John's atrocious typing may have queered this one towards Sherlock).

Fighting style: Again, tricky. Sherlock claimed to have been trained by an expert in some martial art that Lestrade had never heard of, and which Google had denied existed. Of course, that could mean that Sherlock had made it up, but could equally mean that it was some secretive martial art that only the Holmses knew of, or that Sherlock's brother had his minions taught, or something like that. It was hard to be sure with Holmses. John, on the other hand, had been taught to fight by the army and, when pressed, could be damned formidable, in hand-to-hand as much as with the gun that he thought Lestrade didn't know about. Lestrade was inclined to call that one a draw.

Stamina: This was another where they were fairly evenly matched, at least in an athletic sense.

In a fight though, that was different. Lestrade had seen Sherlock shake off pain to the extent that he'd once broken a bone in his hand and hadn't noticed until nearly an hour later, after the case he'd been so focused on had been resolved. But his build was all sinew and bone, little to protect him from a blow recieved, and he couldn't always just ignore pain like that. John, on the other hand, was a tough little fucker, a good brawler. He was solid as hell and somebody would have to hurt their own hand if they wanted to hit him hard enough for it to injure him. A hard call to make, though it was just about skewed to John.

Tactics: Now here was where it got interesting, as Lestrade saw it. John and Sherlock both had their impulsive moments, no doubt about that. But they both had good sense in planning. Sherlock could plot out an experiment with every single variable taken into account. John could do the same for surgery or the treatment of a wound. But then, John had been specifically trained for dealing with battlefields. That might swing it in his favour.

Having spent the many months that he had known them going over and over this in his mind, Lestrade settled down to watch them have it out with a feeling of mingled apprehension and anticipation.

Sherlock threw the first punch, seething with anger and moving so violently that a yell came unbidden from his throat. John smartly ducked towards him, stepping underneath the swing, and managed to get his arms around Sherlock's waist from the side. That was a...well, it was certainly an unexpected move, Lestrade thought. Sherlock aimed another punch at him, and with a grunt of effort John twisted away from the impact and shifted enough that he was now behind Sherlock, grimly hanging on to his taller oponent's midsection with both arms.

One of Greg's theories was confirmed when Sherlock managed to hit John with a kick to the outer thigh, but John shook it off easily. Greg wondered if he was going to pick Sherlock up, then realised that it was quite the opposite; he was dragging Sherlock down with his arms, throwing off his balance and limiting his ability to kick by effectively making him squat. Sherlock realised after a few sloppy swings that he couldn't lay a decent punch while John was behind him, that John was too low behind him for him to butt his head backwards to hurt him, and he went crazy.

John stolidly clung on while Sherlock yelled and swore and swung his arms wildly about, promising vile retribution if John didn't let him go, screaming blistering insults about the millitary, the medical fraternity, the police, and men who wore cardigans. All the while, John kept his grip, his face tense and strained.

Finally, Sherlock wore himself out. He was panting, his legs wobbling and his arms moving with a fraction of their earlier strength. Even his vitriolic outbursts had weakened to gasps. Lestrade was quite astonished, but he supposed the man must have been short on energy after the dreadful day they'd all had.

Finally John let go of Sherlock's waist, walked calmly around to face him, and socked him in the jaw.

Oh it was a _hell_ of a punch! It was the sort of punch that should have had a special effect, like on that old Batman series Greg had loved as a kid: a big, multi-coloured, jagged edged star with _POW!_ or _WHAM!_ written in the middle.

That done, John picked Sherlock up off the floor and spoke quietly to him for a few moments, then propped him against his side and began to drag him towards the taxi rank once more. Lestrade crossed the pavement to them.

"Feel better?" he asked.

"Much," John replied curtly. Sherlock spat on the floor and growled.

"Me too, funnily enough," Lestrade replied.

::

I used to love Top Trumps. When I was about seven or eight years old, two boys in my class told me that I couldn't play Marvel Superheroes Top Trumps with them because I was a girl. I challenged them to let me have five cards (as opposed to their thirty or so each) and see how far I got.  
I annihilated them.  
I remember that day fondly; it was my first cackle.

The reference to Sherlock's possibly non-existant fighting technique is my nod to Baristu in the original canon. Conan Doyle had Holmes use the Japanese wrestling style to defeat Moriarty when they fought at the falls, but Baritsu doesn't actually exist. It's generally accepted that he meant Bartitsu, a style of fighting created by an Englishman using a mixture of Ju-jitsu, boxing and stick fighting (look it up in image search if you want to see Victorian men doing Judo in immaculate three piece suits). I think Bartitsu sounds like it should be the proper term for when a lady accidentally sneezes down her own cleavage.

And yes, Sherlock and John had a fight. It's happened before and I'm sure it'll happen again, probably with differing results each time. If it upsets you, read the chapter title.

Have fun :)


	8. Bristow' Anderson My Foot

John Watson's last dart thumped into the board with rather more force and less accuracy than was really preferable. Anderson smiled.

"90", he announced, aproaching the board to pull the darts free. "Well done, Watson, you finally beat me at one."

The other man grinned warmly at him, accepted Anderson's handshake, and turned away to pick up his drink. To think that, only half an hour ago, Anderson had thought that the freak and his hanger-on's appearance at the pub would spoil the evening.

As soon as he'd noticed Watson watching him practicing darts on his own, he'd invited him to play, and quickly realised that the good doctor's game was somewhat lacking. Of course, he'd immediately lowered his own scores to around the 70 mark to suit, and now had Watson firmly believing that he himself was the better player.

"We're pretty evenly matched," Anderson told him in an undertone. "Care to put a bit of money on the next game?"

Watson raised his eyes to the ceiling for a moment, thinking it over, then gave Anderson another smile and a nod.

"Alright. I do think I'm getting better though."

Anderson viciously supressed his urge to grin. "You are, that's true. But I'm fairly confident. Shall we say...fifty pounds?"

Watson nodded again and they shook on it, then Anderson went to the bar to get a fresh drink. Donovan made eye contact with him as he passed her and gave him a curious look, but he just smiled reassuringly. Nobody else in the pub seemed to have noticed his exchange with Watson. Lestrade and the rest of his detectives were mostly crowded around one of the larger tables, exchanging embarrassing stories about one another, all just edging towards being drunk. Donovan was sitting with that morgue girl and a female detective inspector whom Anderson didn't know, and they appeared to be talking shop. And Holmes...

Holmes appeared at Anderson's elbow as soon as he had placed his order at the bar.

"So you and John are gambling now, are you?" he asked, not raising his eyes from the screen of his phone.

"It's no business of yours," Anderson told him coolly.

Holmes smirked. "I'd rather you didn't try to play tricks on him. In fact, I think you'd find yourself better off if you didn't."

"Was that a threat?" Anderson demanded. "You must be really full of yourself if you think you can threaten me in a room full of bloody police!"

Holmes' eyes lifted from the phone and flicked towards the tv behind the bar, then to the crowd at large, before fixing on Anderson's face. "It's not a threat," he said, calmly.

Anderson suddenly got it. Holmes was cross that he'd have to sit and watch while Anderson took his friend's money. He must know that Watson's silly pride wouldn't let him back down now that he'd shaken on it, military men being rather dim in that way, to Anderson's experience. So instead of trying to warn Watson away, Holmes had decided to try and work on Anderson instead. Well, that wasn't going to go over.

"He's a grown man and he can do what he likes with hs money, including lose it to me," Anderson told him firmly. "Bugger off, Holmes."

He picked up his drink and crossed the room back to the dartboard, vaguely aware of Holmes following him. He wanted to see the thing first hand, no doubt. See if he could find a loophole to make the bet invalid or some such thing. Well, he wouldn't. Anderson was a good enough player that he didn't need to cheat.

Watson was waiting for him, almost childishly eager, the darts in hand. "You want to go first, or shall I?" he asked.

"May I go first?" Anderson requested, and Watson handed him the darts and stepped back to give him space.

Anderson loved seeing their faces when they realised they couldn't beat him, and then again when they realised that they still had to try.

A few other people had approached the board now, and Detective Constable Menzies took it upon himself to call out the scores as each of Anderson's darts hit the board.

_thump_

"Forty!"

_thump_

"Forty!"

_thump_

"Sixty! That's a hundred and forty. Nice one, Anderson."

Anderson smiled as a couple of hands reached out to pat him on the shoulders. "My college friends used to call me 'Bristow' Anderson," he told them, and turned to look at Watson. The other man was still and stoic, only the barest hint of apprehension showing on his face. Anderson grinned and backed out of the way of the board.

Detective Sergeant Begum pulled the darts out of the board and handed waved Watson into place eagerly, and he nodded to her in a perfunctory manner before stepping up. He took a moment to shift his stance around, twirled his first dart in his fingers to be sure of his grip. Then his eyes cut to Anderson.

He smiled.

_thud!_

_thud!_

_thud!_

Anderson gaped. How in _hell_ had he thrown them all so fast?

Beaming, Menzies approached the board, the better to see exactly where the closely grouped darts had hit.

"Sixty, sixty _aaaaaand_...sixty!" he confirmed. "One hundred and eighty! Well done, John!"

Watson grinned as a dozen or so officers appeared to congratulate him. Anderson got bumped towards the back of the crowd before he knew it, and only became aware that his mouth was hanging open when a chilly fingertip reached out to push it shut. He turned to find Holmes giving him a thin smile.

"You weren't thinking of leaving, were you?" he asked in syrupy tones, and it was only then that it occured to Anderson that, perhaps, the thought of ditching _had_ briefly crossed his mind.

"Of course not. Bugger off!"

Holmes sighed happily, and the smile spread wider. "I did _try_ and warn you," he told Anderson earnestly. "But of course, you never do listen. John is a trained marksman, and also not an idiot. Rare qualities. Unlike some."

"Oh...fuck you," Anderson snapped, and got his wallet out. Fifty bloody quid! His wife was going to be furious with him.

::

I love being mean to Anderson.  
'Bristow' refers to Eric Bristow, a world champion British darts player who was largely responsible for the rise in popularity of the game in the 80's. He was so popular and successful that legendary (and often unintentionally hilarious) sports commentator Sid Waddell said of him; 'When Alexander the Great was 33 he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer. Bristow is only 27!'  
And yes, Donovan's 'curious look' was her trying to tell him not to fucking mess with Watson. Shame Anderson didn't notice, really.  
Oh, and in case you don't know, 180 is the highest score you can get in a darts game, or at least it is in the version of darts rules that are used in most British pubs.


	9. Big-Assed Manipulative Fiend

_To: J Watson_

_From: M Holmes_

_Sent: 12.22PM_

_John, I would be obliged if you would encourage my brother to look into the case documented in the packet I had couriered to him earlier today. It is time sensitive and of the utmost importance._

Mycroft Holmes disliked texting considerably. Not only did it require him to fiddle with his phone in a rather undignified way, it also put a great deal of reliance on the person with whom one was communicating, particularly in the regard to the speed to which they would reply and the priority they would apply to the message. Thanksfully, John Watson was usualy fairly prompt in responding. In this instance, however, Mycroft felt that this would be merely the first volley in a long discussion.

True to form, John did not keep him waiting longer than was necessary, and some two or three minutes later Mycroft's phone vibrated against the table next to his elbow and he picked it up.

_To: M Holmes_

_From: J Watson_

_Sent: 12.24PM_

_As he has alerady told you, he is busy with another case of equal importance. If you want him tod o something for you I sugest you talk to him yourslef._

Mycroft allowed himself a modest smile at John's typing skills and pressed the button to reply. As he typed, he raised one hand to signal to the footman, in his bland Diogenes livery, that he wanted another pot of coffee. This would likely take a while.

_To: J Watson_

_From: M Holmes_

_Sent: 12.27PM_

_I doubt that his estimation of equal importance is accurate. Simply because he does not find my issue interesting does not mean it is not vital. I hope that you will see sense John, and insist that he at least read the file._

This time the reply came back almost immediately, the disappointing response lessened somewhat in its negative impact by the satisfying conclusion that John was keeping his phone to hand in order to uphold his end of the conversation.

_To: M Holmes_

_From: J Watson_

_Sent: 12.28PM_

_He has read the file. He said that it wasso easy even i could solve it. I offered to go and he said no, that we have to make you go uot and do something once in a wihle. Besides, its not like ive got nothing to do today myself._

Mycroft frowned. It was true that Sherlock was far easier to deal with now that John was in the picture, but it wouldn't do for John to get an attitude. He sent back;

_To: J Watson_

_From: M Holmes_

_Sent: 12.31PM_

_It would be in your best interests to encourage Sherlock to do this small job for me. I beg of you John, do not make me use persuasive methods._

That ought to do the trick.

It took slightly longer for the reply to come this time, John considering the matter carefully, no doubt. Mycroft found time to call his assistant and dictate a short letter over the phone before the text alert buzzed again.

_To: M Holmes_

_From: J Watson_

_Sent: 12.39PM_

_Don't try and make me do your dirty work Mycroft, especialy when you could resolve this whole thing yoursefl if you only went tot he you got better things to do then meddle?_

Meddle? MEDDLE?! Mycroft was sincerely cross by now. John didn't take him seriously on this matter, and that just wouldn't do. He hadn't been sitting on his discovery all this time not to use it when such an opportunity came along. A little show of force and John would have Sherlock doing as he was asked in no time, and next time it happened there would be no silly fooling around.

The British government didn't pay Mycroft Holmes whatever he damned well told them to to meddle! They paid him whatever he damned well told them to to gather data, collate facts and negotiate.

_To: J Watson_

_From: M Holmes_

_Sent: 12.42PM_

_I don't know if you recall John, a certain night eighteen months ago, in the forensics lab at New Scotland Yard. It seems that this particular lab had been used for a tryst by a man and a woman and that certain evidence, not out of place in a forensics department, had been left behind. Of course, such a silly matter wasn't persued, not when it could cause such embarrassment for the police, and they never checked the DNA evidence against their criminal files. Or against military medical files. But the evidence still exists John, and it would undoubtedly be awfully embarrassing for the man involved, would it not?_

There. Threat made, and now John knew where he stood. It wasn't really anything that John was likely to be arrested for, and Mycroft wouldn't allow him to go to prison anyway, as Sherlock would surely become wholly unsufferable if that happened. It was enough to cause John considerable humiliation though, as well as emotional upset over the honour of the woman in the matter, and a blow to his already poor (thanks to Sherlock) reputation with most of the police.

But of course, it wouldn't come to that. Mycroft was not a cruel man. It was simply that John had to learn that when Mycroft said something was important, he meant it. And that the downside to having so much rare influence over Sherlock was that he sometimes had to use it to force changes in behaviour for the greater good.

Mycroft's phone finally buzzed again.

_To: M Holmes_

_From: J Watson_

_Sent: 1.08PM_

_Playing dirty aer we? Give me twenty minutes._

Mycroft smiled to himself, startling one of the footmen, and asked for a newspaper to be brought. John was on board now, and it would surely be only a matter of time before Sherlock was at the scene of the theft and working hard to get the matter quietly settled. There was time for a little entertainment in the form of the cryptic crossword.

Mycroft was quite absorbed by the time a new text arrived, and he picked up his phone in a leisurely manner, expecting to find they were on their way.

No.

_To: M Holmes_

_From: J Watson_

_Sent: 1.33PM_

_Mycroft, check my blog._

What?

Mycroft picked up his laptop and set it on the table at his elbow, opening the browser and going to his bookmarks. He'd been keeping an eye on John's blog, naturally, and found it easily. It had been updated since he'd checked that morning. The newest post was just text; no title, no 'Read more' link at the bottom. After scanning briefly over it, Mycroft started to read and...ah.

'I've got a bit of a confession to make today. That sounds bad, but given that I live with Sherlock, I imagine you can all guess that it isn't that I've been out murdering people or anything.

Last year I was fortunate enough to enjoy the intimate companionship of a certain lady, and stupidly chose a lab at NSY as the location. Obviously, the police didn't like discovering that somebody had been having unapproved fun in their lab, but didn't persue it. But I recently had it brought home to me what a stupid thing this was to have done, and I wanted to get it off my chest.

I'm sorry for any problems it caused, I really am.

And no, certain-people-who-know-who-they-are, I am not going to divulge the name of the lady, who was far more sensible than me and said it was a daft idea from the start. Some of us still try to be gentlemen.'

As Mycroft read, the comments counter below the post ticked up, and he clicked on it to see what the responses were. Lestrade was calling John several unflattering names, but seemed unlikely to pursue the matter any further than that. A couple of John's regular readers were calling him a playboy and similar.

Mycroft's phone buzzed again.

_To: M Holmes_

_From: J Watson_

_Sent: 1.40PM_

_Sherlock is in the midddle of something very important at the mmoent, but when he has finished Ill ask him to look at your case. Unless you've sorted it out by yourself by then, that is._

Mycroft slipped the phone back into his briefcase and closed the laptop.

Sat for a while chewing it over.

Then he called for his coat and brolly, and set off for the crime scene.

::

Yay! Mycroft moved his ass!  
All the spelling mistakes in John's texts are deliberate. Any other spelling mistakes were all mine.  
I knew from the start that I wanted to do a chapter in this from Mycroft's POV, but I couldn't work out a way for John to impress him that would be extreme enough for him to actually show he was impressed. Then I realised that the story didn't have to run that way, and ended up with this, which I'm really quite pleased with. It was hard to write, because I found it tricky to get a handle on Mycroft. I don't think he's actually this much of a horror, but he has his ideas on how things should be and won't tolerate barriers to him getting his way.

This chapter took me a bit longer to get out than usual, as I'm working on something else at the same time. I'll just say for now that there'll be another Sherlock story from me not long after this one wraps up.


	10. Ballistic Accuracy Means Fun

Paintball was brilliant! Mike Stamford hadn't had this much fun in years, seriously. And yeah, he was a fairly sociable guy and he and his wife had a good social life, but it was ages since he'd done anything like _this_.

It had been the idea of Cathy from the hospitals' research department, a serious and fiercely intellectual woman and, to Mike's mind, one of the people he'd have least expected to enjoy something like paintballing. But it had been a corker of an idea, and she'd done a good job of organising it. The bi-annual interdepartmental outing was usually a fairly boring affair consisting of a day at some sporting event or a picnic at a National Trust place, but this year was the best by far. The popularity of it had showed straight away, when the sign-up sheet had filled up within hours of it being pinned to the bulletin board, and there were now over thirty doctors, nurses and administrators sneaking around these woods, dressed in camo and wielding canisters of pressurised paint.

Well, thirty doctors etc, one ex-military G.P. and one consulting detective.

When two members of staff had cried off last thing the previous day, Cathy had come to Mike's office to ask if he could think of anyone else who might like to take their non-refundable places, and had encountered Sherlock and John in the lab. John had decided straight away that he'd like to go (Mike suspected that he and Cathy had had a 'thing' in their student days and John remained one of a very short list of people that she smiled at) and had talked Sherlock around to it in short order. There'd been a little confusion about who they were when they'd turned up for the coach that morning, as they hadn't actually met that many of the staff, but John had spent the journey to the woodland sports centre cheerfully introducing himself to everyone within reach and cautiously confirming or denying the stories of Sherlock's escapades while his partner sat scrunched in a seat, texting away. By the time they arrived, a considerable number of people were vying to be on the same team as them.

Mike shook himself; he had to get all that sentimental crap out of his head. Blue team and Yellow team, that's what it came down to out here in the woods. Mike was Blue, John was Yellow, thus the enemy. Unsurprisingly Sherlock had managed to get himself onto the same team as John, but had been so disdainful of the whole idea that he was probably off deducing squirrels somewhere, covered in blue paint. It had been fully an hour since the big noisy battle after everyone had first been turned loose into the fenced off play area, and glimpses of other players were now few and far between. Mike wasn't sure if that meant that the others had all been caught out and shot, or if the area of woodland they were playing in was simply much bigger than he'd first realised. Either way, he was pretty damn pleased with himself to be out here still. There was a good chance he could make it to the end of the session unpainted and make it a win for his team.

As he crept through the undergrowth, Mike became aware of a movement up a little slope to his right, about a hundred yards away. He stopped for a moment, keeping absolutely still, waiting for his prey to give its position away. He didn't have to wait long. After a few seconds he heard shifting footsteps near the top of the slope and caught a glimpse of a tall figure, their head just sticking up above the ridge at the top. He slung his gun around so it rested against his back and crept stealthily up the slope, silent as a shadow until he could see over the ridge.

On the other side was a wide hollow in the ground, the earth within it almost bare but surrounded on all sides by scrubby waist-high undergrowth and a few ragged bushes. Mike's climb had brought him up between a clump of bramble and a small, shaggy tree, so he could see his victim without yet being seen.

It was Sherlock, pacing languidly around the hollow, giving vent to an occasional irritated sigh. He was still pristine, or as close as he could get in sports centre camos, not a drop of paint on him. His paintball gun lay on the ground, several feet away from him, apparently forgotten. The brainy prat had probably managed to keep hold of his phone when they'd come out here, Mike decided, and was waiting for a return call or something. He could have hidden up here without being spotted for the whole ninety minutes, probably, or at least that's what he must have thought.

He'd reckoned without Mike Stamford though.

He wouldn't be able to get a clear shot unless he climbed a bit higher on the ridge, so he shifted forward, watching Sherlock carefully to be sure he wasn't spotted. The wind was quite strong though, and the rattling branches above them must have drowned out the sound of his own footsteps. Between the plants and his camo, he must have been practically invisible.

This would be easy.

He checked that his paint canister was screwed firmly into place on the gun, then raised it, holding it steady in both hands, staring through the sights, and-

A sharp blow hit him right in the celiac plexus, and he had to let go of his gun and flail out one hand to steady himself against the tree. He looked down to see a spreading yellow stain on his camo jacket, looked up again to see Sherlock turn to him with a triumphant expression on his face. He was laughing.

"John," the detective called, "is there anyone else about?"

"No, he was on his own," came John's voice from bloody _nowhere_. Mike stepped carefully down into the hollow, staring around to try and spot his friend. He approached Sherlock, who still looked like the cat who'd caught the canary, despite having likely not fired his gun all day. Mike frowned.

"Where the bloody hell is Watson? I...oh!"

As he spoke, a figure emerged from the bushes on the opposite side of the hollow to where Mike had been hiding. What he'd thought was a large clump of ferns resolved itself into a crouching John Watson with dozens of fern fronds attached to his clothes, paintball gun cradled comfortably in his hands. He must have been as still as a statue. Mike could barely believe his eyes.

The bastard was grinning.

"Fuck's sake, John," Mike cried as John made his way down the slope to join them. "Did you have to shoot me in the middle of the bloody chest? That hurt!"

John pushed a frond back from his face and smiled pleasantly. "Actually Mike, since we're technically using rifles, had this been a real combat situation you'd have been dead instantly, too quickly to feel any pain."

Sherlock let out a bark of laughter at that and John grinned at him, raising his arm high in the air, open palm towards Sherlock.

Sherlock, still chuckling, just looked up at his hand.

Wait for it...

John stood patiently still.

Wait for it...

Mike wondered how long he would have to let this go on for before it got properly awkward.

_Wait for it..._

And then the light dawned in Sherlock's eyes as he finally got with the programme and reached up to return John's high five.

Mike considered shooting them both.

::

I had a friend who took paintballing far too seriously, covered himself in bits of fern and branches, and then ran around like an asshole, screaming. No bloody point to the camoflage if you suddenly decide to charge at people across a fifty yard stretch of open ground. This is what could have happened if he'd thought it through a bit better (though he still wouldn't have been half so cool).


	11. Being A Medical Fighter

It was sheer boredom that had brought Sherlock to the pub. Once a month, give or take a few days, John met up with a small, constantly varying group of fellow ex and current soldiers of his acquaintance, and it was acknowledged between them that Sherlock had a standing invitation to join them, despite the fact that he had never once acted upon it.

Eight days without a case though, along with five whole days of John at the surgery from 8.30 to 5.30 each day (not counting his commute, which took him a ridiculously long time and about which Sherlock felt like writing a letter to a politician or possibly just nagging Mycroft) had left him feeling bored and twitchy, sick even of his experiments. So a Friday evening in the pub, quietly observing John's friends, would be at the very least a fresh location.

He had an agreement with John that, among friends, he could deduce as much as he liked as long as he kept it to himself, with the exception of occasions when somebody was trying to harm or be cruel to somebody else. By 8pm, Sherlock knew the life histories of the five other men around the table, and had quietly and politely as possible revealed that Motson (feeling unfairly treated over his recent lack of promotions and still slightly sore at John for having gained the rank of Captain ahead of him) had been making up the story about his ex-wife's boyfriend in order to save face. John had watched Sherlock carefully as he spoke, but seemed to be satisfied that he was keeping his word, and told Motson to stop spreading rumours about Cathy who was, apparently, a 'decent girl'.

By 9pm, Wallis and Almond were drunk and laughing uproariously over some anecdote about a jeep that Sherlock couldn't see the humour in. John was smiling and making conversation with a younger soldier he didn't know very well, Hutchinson, who was on leave and had been brought along by Almond. Motson sat quietly and fumed, glaring at Sherlock and John when he thought they wouldn't notice.

Presently, John excused himself and went to the lavatory, and Sherlock took the opportunity to persue an issue he'd noticed when they sat down.

Catching Hutchinson's eye, he leant across the table to speak quietly to the young man, the soldier doing the same.

"You never actually served with John, did you," he stated confidently. "Or, at least, you've never had any relationship with him before now, though you know of one another. Due to your youth and lack of further education, you would not have had cause to work with him in the medical corps or to have gone through training with him. You have an acquaintance with Almond but are not close friends and you don't know anyone else at this table. You openly admire John, but have obviously never had a conversation with him before this evening. You don't admire him for his military achievements, as Wallis has achieved equal acclaim yet you've barely interacted with him."

Hutchinson's raised eyebrows told him he was correct, and the lack of anger or threats told him he hadn't overstepped any lines that John would not approve of. "Fuckin' hell!" Wallis exclaimed appreciatively.

"You are something of an abberation," Sherlock concluded "And I would like to know why you are here."

The other men had gone quiet now, and Hutchinson raised his head to exchange a glance and a half smile with Almond.

"Captain Watson saved my life once," Hutchinson explained.

Sherlock frowned. "He has saved many people's lives, I'm sure."

Hutchinson grinned and shook his head slightly, conscious of his own fancy. "Most of them have met him though. I was knocked out before he got to me, and I woke up to be told that he'd saved me. By that time he'd gone back to his base camp."

Sherlock studied him once more, certain that there was more to it still. His gaze unnerved Hutchinson enough that the young man turned to Almond.

"It's alright," Almond told him. "Tell 'im the rest."

Hutchinson shrugged and nodded, then turned back to Sherlock with an open smile.

"It was a landmine. I was hurt so bad, I was sure I was dying. So was our medic, he was talking to me about what I wanted my Mum to be told and what not. I can remember feeling my heart slowing down. Apparently, Captain Watson showed up just a few seconds after I passed out and my heart stopped. They couldn't do heart massage or whatever it's called, cos' my ribs were broken up. It would've wrecked my lungs and then I'd have been in just as bad a state. But he sorted me out."

He leaned back in his chair a little and lifted up the front of his shirt, baring his stomach and lower chest. Across his torso, just under the line of his lower ribs, was a ragged scar running most of the width of his chest.

"He cut me open, reached in and squeezed my heart until it started pumping again. Saved me. He did my surgery too, when they got me back to base in the helicopter. I talked to one of the other doctors later and she told me there was a one in a million chance of that working, given the state I was in. He did it though."

Hutchinson smoothed his shirt back down and took a swig of his drink. The rest of the table was silent and thoughtful

"Funny thing, to think that some bloke you've never met has actually held your heart in his hand. So Almond brought me along to meet him." He nodded to himself. "He's a good bloke."

"He is," Sherlock agreed.

The door to the loos creaked and John emerged, crossing the floor to the table quickly.

"Why're we all so quiet?" he asked, glancing at Sherlock as if he expected him to have caused trouble.

"Hutch 'as been showin' us 'is war wound," Almond told him, and John chuckled and reached for his glass, unaware of the stares he was recieving from Motson and Wallis. Silly of them, Sherlock thought. John was a good doctor, of course he would have done things like this. It wasn't _that_ impressive.

John drained his glass. "I'll get another round," Hutchinson offered.

"Nah, it's my turn," Motson countered, unexpectedly.

Sherlock got to his feet. "I'll get it," he said, and forestalled any argument by turning at once to make his way to the bar.

"Sherlock? Seriously?" John asked, confused.

Sherlock was already halfway to the bar by then and could pretend he hadn't heard him.

::

As I understand it, internal cardiac massage is not a rare technique, though it isn't often used, as other techniques are preferable as long as the condition of the patient allows for them. I chose it because I thought a battlefield would be a fairly likely place for such a thing to become necessary, and because I wanted something nice and dramatic for John to have done.  
Sherlock will never, but never, admit that he is impressed.


	12. Epilogue

The bloody experiment was going nowhere. Sherlock had been in the lab for nearly seven hours now, not a record for him by a long chalk, but certainly more than this relatively simple matter warranted. However, a series of interruptions from Lestrade about the case they had just closed, followed by the discovery that a batch of petri dishes had become tainted while in storage, had required him to restart his experiment several times and it was becoming truly frustrating.

During hour six, John had turned up with his laptop and a bag full of take-away Chinese food, and had settled on the other lab table to keep Sherlock company while he ate and blogged. While Sherlock didn't really appreciate the smell of black bean sauce and the staccato clatter of keys while he was trying to work, John's presence did assuage his frustration to some degree, so he put up with it manfully, breaking into his own concentration every now and then to give vent to his annoyance and make John chuckle.

A few minutes ago, however, John had buggered off. Oh Sherlock knew where he'd gone, of course. There was a pharmacologist whose office was down the hall, with whom John liked to flirt, and he'd no doubt gone off to exchange 'witticisms' with her. It was annoying, but they'd discussed the matter of Sherlock leaving John alone while the latter attempted to 'get off' with women before, and he decided, rather nobly, to leave his friend to it.

During a long wait for the centrifuge to finish its cycle though, he became bored, and couldn't help but notice that John had left his laptop out, and his blog logged in.

Having corrected John's most recent article on a few points, and also having removed a certain disdainful comment about his own laundry habits, Sherlock clicked the button to post it. With distressing speed, the hit counter on the website began ticking up again, John's legion of fans apparently stalking the blog in fear of missing an update. Sherlock tutted at the boring state of some people's lives that they had to rely on an internet blog for entertainment, and crossed the room back to his experiment.

The centrifuge hadn't finished yet. He frowned and drummed his fingers on the table, then looked at nothing in particular through the microscope for a minute or two, then jumped up onto the edge of the table and kicked his heels against the table leg.

Then, bored beyond belief, he went back to the blog.

Scrolling through the older posts exposed Sherlock to more than he liked of John's questionable sense of humour in the form of the titles he'd given to their various cases. 'The Cardboard Fox', 'The No-Good Builder', 'The Wisteria Lodgers', and so on and so forth...until he came to 'The Essex Vampire'.

That rang a bell. Why did it ring a bell?

They'd been discussing it a few weeks ago, hadn't they? That was it. Their discussion had been something of a loose end, and so had lingered in Sherlock's mind until now. Frowning, he clicked into the comments on the post and looked for the one that John had asked him about.

B.A.M.F.

What on earth could that be?

Just as Sherlock was about to open another tab with which to look the acronym up, the door opened and Molly came in, smiling sycophantically at him.

"Hi Sherlock," she said nervously. "Mike told me you were down here. Mind if I come in?"

He grunted, which she took as an affirmative, and she crossed the room to him, the fingers of her right hand twiddling with those of her left.

"Doing anything interesting?"

"At the moment, no."

She opened her mouth on a no doubt searingly witty response, when it occured to him that Molly was an avid blog reader, and that she may be able to shed some light on the nature of this acronym.

"Molly, do you have any idea what the initials 'B.A.M.F.' may stand for, in the context of a blog post about John tackling a criminal to the floor?"

"Oh, Bamf!" Molly resonded brightly, pronouncing the acronym as if it were a word. "Of course. It stands for bad ass mother...um..."

"What?"

"...Effer."

"_What?_"

People use it online all the time. It means somebody that...well, that...well, you wouldn't want to mess with one!"

"Hmm," Sherlock replied, not entirely certain about her definition. What on earth was an 'effer'? Did she mean some sort of cow?

He opened his mouth to put this to her, when the sound of running footsteps reached his ears from beyond the lab doors, along with John's voice, some way in the distance, shouting angrily. Sherlock rushed to the door, Molly at his heels, and pushed it open just in time to see a young man in casual wear go skidding along the corridor floor, face down, John's arms locked around his waist and most of John's weight on his back.

Textbook rugby tackle, Sherlock noted.

The flirty pharmacologist came running up as Sherlock steped out of the lab, yelling gleefully at the man John had brought down, calling him all manner of names, as John bent the young man's arm up behind his back and dragged him to his feet.

Sherlock took stock of the young man, and cut John off as the latter opened his mouth to explain.

"He broke into the server room to try and steal some computer equipment?"

"Uh, yes."

"In order to pay off his online gambling debts, yes?"

"Um..." John said. The young man was staring at Sherlock with astonishment, confirming his deduction nicely. A couple of the hospital security guards came panting up to them, thanked John for his help, explained that the police had been called, and led the young man away. The pharmacologist went with them to speak to the police, but the look she gave John before she left communicated clearly that he would have little difficulty in attempting to 'get off' with her.

Molly had ducked back into the lab, leaving John and Sherlock alone in the corridor, John still slightly out of breath.

"John," Sherlock said. "You are a Bamf."

"...A what?" John asked, cocking his head to one side.

"A bad ass mother effer."

John cocked his head to one side and stared at him.

"Ask Molly," Sherlock told him, and went back to check on the centrifuge.

::

Well, that's the end, and I hope you've all enjoyed it.  
I don't quite know where all these ideas come from, but I'm glad they showed up, as this has been very enjoyable to write. I've always been fond of the character of John Watson, in whatever form and setting, but when he is shown on television, the audience doesn't see, as they do in the original stories, the mental and emotional processes, the loyalty and light-heartedness, the conformity and abberations, that make up the man. So for me, it's little ideas like these ones that fill the gaps and make Watson into a more satisfactory character. They swim in my head with every watching of any Sherlock Holmes series, so I thought to write some down.  
The stories referenced in John's blog were originally 'The Cardboard Box', 'The Norwood Builder' and 'Wisteria Lodge'.


End file.
